Bryce Moore's Blog, page 308

Shopping at Christmas and How to Avoid Long Lines (or Not)

First, a confession: I rarely go to the store. It's even more rare that I go to an actual store during the holidays.* The reason for this mainly boils down to the fact that I don't like large groups of people, and one of the best ways to avoid large groups of people is to not go to the store. Especially during the holidays. That said, it's not an actual phobia or anything--I'm perfectly fine going to the movies, or to concerts, or football games. But stores bring out the worst in people sometimes, and when I actually do go to them, it's usually because I need something and am in a hurry. Inevitably, I get stuck in a slow checkout lane. I'm betting the same thing happens to you, too.



Today I found out there's a mathematical reason for that.



First, check out the video that explains it. I'll have a bit more to say about it after you're done.







Isn't that interesting? It makes me like BestBuy just a smidge more, and makes me understand my misfortune in all checkout lines that much better. Now if they'd only figure out why it is I always sit in front of the chatty obnoxious people in the movie theater.



*Where do I do my shopping? Almost 100% online. I love the reviews, the ability to find out more info about a product easily--all that good stuff. Of course, with bar code scanner apps coming to smartphones, it's possible to be in the store, scan the bar code and get all that info while you're actually holding the product, which might win me over to more in-store purchases in the future . . .

So Long, Mountain West--My Current Thoughts on BYU Football

Okay, the football season is officially over for us Y fans. Happily, we were able to end the season with a bang, although it helps when you play a punching bag instead of a real team. That's right, UTEP. I called you a punching bag. Don't take it personally--your QB was hobbled, and you had the misfortune of playing what turned out to be an underrated BYU team. It happens to the best of us.



When I take a step back and look at the season as a whole, I'm pretty pleased--something I didn't think I'd be able to say after we lost 4 games in a row. Really there are only two games out of the 4 we lost that I'm particularly upset about losing. Let's go over our games one by one.



Beat Washington 23-17--An okay win, although Washington has gone on to a 6-6 record. They beat two ranked teams and played six total. Despite the win, this game screwed us up for the next few games, giving Mendenhall confirmation that his 2 QB scheme was actually going to work.
Lost to Air Force 35-14--You know what? We lost to a team that ended up going 8-4, almost beating #7 Oklahoma and #8 Utah this season. This isn't a loss to be sorry about.
Lost to Florida State 34-10--The team went 9-4 and is #23. Again, not a bad loss.
Lost to Nevada 27-13--Nevada is #15 and went 12-1, beating a little team called Boise State along the way. This is a loss that felt really bad at the time, but which time has gone on to show was actually not so bad after all. They're a genuinely good team.
Lost to Utah State 31-16--This is the first loss that really still bugs me. It's a 4-8 team that we should have been able to handle, even away. That said, it's this loss that got Mendenhall to switch things up on the defensive end, which turned out to be very good for us. So a mixed bag, I guess.
Beat San Diego State 24-21--San Diego is 8-4. They beat #23 Air Force and almost beat #3 TCU and #23 Utah. This was a good win, and a dramatic turn around from the week before.
Lost to #4 TCU 31-3--Slaughtered. We were totally outmatched by this team. 'Nuff said.
Beat Wyoming 25-20--They're 3-9. We should have beat them by more, but I'll take the win.
Beat UNLV 55-7--They're 2-11. We better have beaten them.
Beat Colorado State 49-10--3-9. Again, we better have beaten them.
Beat New Mexico 40-7--1-11. Who says playing punching bags is bad?
Lost to #20 Utah 17-16--Yes, Utah is 10-2, and yes they're now #19, and yes, it was an away game for us, but the loss still bugs me, because we should have won. You could blame the refs for messing up a call, you could blame Mendenhall for going for it on 4th down when he could have kicked a field goal and put us up two possessions. You could blame it on not being able to hold on to the ball. You can blame a lot of different things, but in the end, we lost a game we should have won. (And while I'm at it, a note to all BYU and Utah fans: there are times to rush the field, and times not to. When you barely manage to beat a 6-5 team at home, and you were the heavy favorite to start with, at least act like you've been there before. Yes, it's a rivalry game, but BYU and Utah fans have always looked for excuses to rush the field, it seems to me. Now that we're moving on to other things--Pac-12 and Independence--let's try to act the part a bit better.)
Beat UTEP 52-24--They're 6-7 now, and they backed into the bowl. It wasn't by any means a gimme game, and it was great to see us do so well, but still . . . I would have been really upset if we'd lost. (As opposed to what would have happened if we'd beaten Utah and faced, say Boise State, in our bowl game. Then we would have been the punching bag.)
So only two losses that I really think we shouldn't have on our record. Seeing as how we went through so much growth this season, with so many new faces, I'm very optimistic for the future. (Assuming all our good players don't go out in the off season and decide to impregnate people, that is. Seriously--you want to sabotage a BYU football team, just seduce the star players. Sheesh.)

Next year, we'll be independent. (I could make some joke about the chosen land and Independence, but even I have my limits.) We'll open our season at current #21 Ole Miss, play Texas, current #19 Utah, current #25 UCF, Oregon State and current #24 Hawaii. It's not a bad schedule, especially for having been hammered out at the last minute. Yes, there are still some punching bags, but there have always been punching bags on our schedule. Games won't be on the awful Mtn Network anymore--ESPN channels and BYUTV, which you can stream for free online. That's a huge plus, in my book. We have a bowl game lined up (no, it's not a New Year's Day game, but these days, it's either a big Bowl Game, or it's not. There's no real middle ground, in my opinion.)

So I see plenty to be excited for. I'm sad that the rivalry between Utah is going to have less importance, and I'm sad to be saying farewell to the conference that might have been (TCU, Utah, BYU, Boise State), but such is life. Our team had its ups and downs this season, but they brought things together at the end. The fact that I can be irritated at the Utah loss is a testimony to that.

Anyway--good luck against Boise State tonight, Utah. I'll be watching. See ya later Mountain West. And hello, independence!

Must-See Christmas Movie: Christmas in Connecticut

I don't know if I've just lived my life under a rock for the past thirty some odd years, or if many people find themselves in this situation, but I had somehow managed to not see Christmas in Connecticut until last night. The 1945 film stars Barbara Stanwyck as a Martha Stewart of her time--except she's fictionalized her entire life. She writes about all the great food she bakes (she can't bake), the great house she has (she has an apartment), her doting husband and baby (she's single)--and the public eats it up. She's one of the most successful columnists in the country. Naturally, hijinks must ensue. Her publisher is completely unaware that she has fabricated all of this--and he values Truth highly. When a soldier asks to come for Christmas dinner to Stanwyck's house, the publisher insists she accommodate the request. Easy enough--she just has to learn to cook, find a idyllic farm, a husband and a baby in all of a few days.



As far as Christmas movies go, this isn't heavy on the Christmas. I mean, there's no Message about how great Christmas is or what it really means. It just happens to take place at Christmas time. That said, the holiday does play a pretty major role, and I can see why it's appeared on so many "Best Christmas Movies" lists. Denisa and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Alas, it's not available on streaming--you actually have to get the DVD--but it's well worth it. Three and a half stars, easy.



So now the question--how many of you already have seen this movie, and are appalled that it's taken me this long to "discover" it? This is a win/win for me--I really want people to have seen the film, because it's just that good. If you all already have, then great. If you haven't, then I can feel good about having recommended it to you. :-)



While I'm at it, what movies do you consider obscure Christmas classics? I think we all know about Christmas Story, Christmas Carol (in all its flavors), Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Christmas Vacation--what are some obscure ones you like, that most people have overlooked? I might have to do a separate blog post on Christmas movies, actually . . .

Tankless Water Heater Update

Our new tankless water heater is now installed and fully operational, meaning the oil furnace we have is now strictly backup heat--the less we use it, the more we save. This in turn makes me start wondering just how much money we'll be shelling out each year to have backup heat now and then. It could be that it ends up being more worth our while to convert that chimney to a pellet stove, or another wood stove. I mean, if we still are paying $50 or $100 a month just for the option of having baseboard heat a few nights a year . . . then that doesn't sound like too wise a financial decision. Then again, without some option for heating the house while we're gone, it becomes difficult to go on any vacations in the winter, seeing as how frozen, burst water pipes and I don't get along too well.



In any case, things to ponder . . .



So what do we think of our tankless water heater so far? Love it. It lives in our bathroom, right behind our shower. It provides wonderfully hot water, and because it's so much closer to where we use the hot water, the heat comes much more quickly. (Except in the kitchen, where apparently the water decides to go for a tour under our living room before moseying into the faucet. We might have to switch that this summer.) It truly does put out endless hot water, although we have yet to put it through its paces--seeing just how many things we can run at the same time and not lose pressure. We'd been concerned it might be too noisy for our bathroom, but such is not the case. Plus, it's only on when you're using hot water, so . . . you don't mind what little noise is there.



So it's tiny, quiet, efficient, and I didn't have to do the installing myself. (Of course, I paid for that luxury--but we're getting $$$ back from Uncle Sam because of that fancy tax credit that goes for the next week or two, so it evens out.) I'll update more if my opinion of the thing changes, but for now, consider me a happy customer. (Just need to put in an electrical outlet by the thing, since the closest plug is like 10 feet away. But that's par for the course, in an old farm house.) Questions? I'm happy to answer them.

Book Reviews: Daemon and Freedom

Daemon by Daniel Suarez


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



An interesting read that took me a while to get into and left me feeling rather frustrated. Despite that, I enjoyed it. First, the frustration: this book is part 1 of a two book series. You won't see that anywhere on the cover, and it very much leaves off right in the middle of the action. I don't mind series, but I'd appreciate to know when I'm reading one, so that I don't expect an ending. (Although in this case, the "ending" is more just a convenient pause in the action, not a real tying up of anything.) Since this is Suarez's first book, I suspect it and its sequel were written as one volume, and the publisher decided to cut it in two. Fine--just let me know!

That said, it's an interesting premise. A big name video game designer dies, and suddenly chaos runs rampant. It's discovered that he wrote a nasty program designed to go into effect on his death. It searches news feeds for key words, then puts into play the next step of the designer's plan, essentially allowing him to continue to influence the world after his death. Seen from another angle, he takes video game mechanics and applies them to reality, with the ultimate goal of destroying major businesses and governments.

If you can get beyond the technobabble that pops up now and then, and you're willing to give the very large benefit of the doubt to the idea that this man planned for so many contingencies, then the book's a good read. It's fast moving and interesting to think about what would or could happen with the proper coding, preparation and foresight. Is the book entirely believable? Not really. But could it happen? I suppose it could.

Recommended to those of you who aren't too persnickety about your science fiction--it's more mainstream than sci-fi, anyway. But if you read it, be sure to have the sequel handy--I'll review that in a moment, since I've finished it, too.





View all my reviews



Freedom (TM) by Daniel Suarez


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The conclusion to Daemon--it has most of the same strengths and weaknesses of the first book. Jumping forward a few months after the end of the first novel, Freedom brings everything to a fitting conclusion, more or less. As with the first, I wasn't really convinced by a lot of the tech side of things, and I can't help but feel like there were some major issues Suarez was ignoring. That said, if you read it as a piece of fiction and forget about being too critical of the science, then it works quite well.





View all my reviews[image error]

Blake Edwards and I (or Should It Be Me?)

As I posted briefly yesterday, Blake Edwards passed away. While some of you might not know who he is, you really ought to--and you likely know of his work and influence if nothing else. For the Pink Panther series alone, the man should be legendary. (And if Clouseau isn't your style, what about Edwards being married to Julie Andrews?) So I thought I'd take a minute for today's blog entry and tell my favorite experience with a Blake Edwards movie.



I can't remember not knowing about the Pink Panther. Granted, some of that is because for the first decade of my life, I thought the Pink Panther meant the cartoon, and I remember being quite disappointed when I saw my first real Pink Panther movie, and it wasn't 120 minutes of a pink feline blowing up a bumbling detective. That said, we all mature, and I'm pleased to say I grew in nicely to the Peter Sellers movies and now appreciate them for the masterpieces they are. :-)



I also enjoy Breakfast at Tiffany's, although I didn't watch it until college, when it was part of a film adaptation course I took (one of many). Reading the book by Truman Capote and comparing it with the film--good times. And anything with Audrey Hepburn in it is pretty much good by default, if for no other reason than getting to watch Audrey Hepburn for an hour and a half.



But my personal favorite Blake Edwards experience has to be The Party, hands down. I had never even heard of the The Party before 2002, when I flew British Airways home from Slovakia. Each seat had its own built in television with a selection of movies to choose from. Denisa went with some romcom for her choice--I was drawn to The Party, since the description mentioned Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers in the same paragraph.



I grant you that The Party isn't for everyone. I forced my family to watch it once I got home, and many of them just sort of stared at it in bewilderment, trying to figure out what I thought was so funny. Peter Sellers plays Hrundi Bakshi, an Indian bit actor who manages to single-handedly destroy an entire movie set. He then inadvertently gets invited to a Hollywood party, and hilarity ensues. And who can forget the birdie num nums? It's a bumbling, wildly un-PC performance, and trapped as I was on a 9 hour plane ride, I found it uproariously funny. You know how when you're not supposed to laugh out loud, it somehow heightens the humor of anything? That's what happened to me on that plane. I loved the whole film, and I still do.



So, Mr. Edwards, thank you very much for Clouseau, Holly, and most of all Hrundi. You shall be missed.[image error]

Why I Stopped Using Networked Blogs and Switched to dlvr.it

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you probably noticed a few weeks ago that I switched the way my blog feeds into those two places. I had initially been using Networkedblogs, this addon to Facebook that purports to import your blog into FB and then forward it on to Twitter. It seemed to be working just fine, but I had a suspicion that it was stealing some of my page views. Nothing concrete, but I couldn't find proof anywhere online that it played nicely with Google Analytics, Adsense and the like.



Finally my agent mentioned to me that he found the Networkedblogs interface frustrating when he wanted to then link to one of my blog entries, and that was that. I decided to jump ship. After asking around some, I was recommended to dlvr.it, a free service that does the same thing as Networkedblogs, but with a much more open interface--letting you track your views much more easily and know exactly where your traffic is coming from. I made the switch, and guess what?



Networkedblogs has totally been stealing my pageviews.



I would estimate that most of my readers from Facebook and Twitter have been going to Networkedblogs' page--and thus earning Networkedblogs money, not me. (Not that my blog earns me a ton of money, but it's the principle that counts here.) Now that I'm with dlvr.it, my traffic has taken a significant upturn. I know how many of my Facebook friends click to read my blog and how many of my Twitter fans (not who--no specifics. Don't worry--I don't know that YOU haven't been reading. Your secret's still safe.) I'm a stats junkie, and I love seeing that data.



Not that any of this is probably of any interest to you, but I figured I'd share it just the same--in case some poor soul out there is wondering about Networkedblogs and Adsense. I can spare him/her the waste of time. Just go to dlvr.it. Love it.



And since you've put up with me this long, here's a movie clip for you. Name that film--no fair looking at the link!



Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com[image error]

A Realization: Older People Were Once Young

Yes, I know that seems like a no-brainer, but it's hit me in various ways the past month. It all started when I was digitizing home movies (a process I'm getting quite good at now, might I add). As a kid, all grownups are, by definition OLD. Not just sort of old. They're old old. As in, different. And I think as you get older yourself, you still classify those grownups (in your head at least) as old. Your parents. Your uncles and aunts. Their friends. All of them are grownups--while you yourself are still youthful and chipper.



Well when you watch home videos of you when you were a baby, and you see all those OLD people--and they're younger than you are now--something snaps inside you. Some small holdout of childhood whimpers and whines, "Ah man!" Because you have to face the facts: you are now OLD, too. My kids look at me the same way I looked at my parents. I'm a grownup, whether I want to be or not.



The next step to this is realizing that all these OLD people were once young, just as you were once young. Yes, I realize that it's something we've all mentally acknowledged, but for some reason, it took the surrender of that last bastion of childhood for me to really comprehend that tidbit. That and articles like this one, which was written by my father and was published online today. (Great job on the article, by the way!) More than writing, the pictures also forced me to confront two facts: first, my father was once a child, and second, my Uncle Dave was once forced to wear a kilt (that explains so much, which makes me wonder why I hadn't been told this fact earlier).



Each of us go through the same basic experiences: childhood, adolescence, school, college, dating--all that stuff. And while each of us has a unique spin on things on our turn on the merry-go-round, when you take a step back and look at it, it's still the same merry-go-round. Things don't change that much.



So what's the next step in this process of realization is to figure out that even really old people played on that merry-go-round, too. George Washington, Isaac Newton, Shakespeare, Homer. Yes, the playground's been remodeled quite a few times, but the circular motion remains.



And that's about as far as I want to take that playground metaphor at this point, or else it's going to start having a childhood and adolescent years, too.[image error]

Movie Review: Crimes and Misdemeanors

Denisa and I returned for another round of Woody Allen the other day, this time going for Crimes and Misdemeanors. I think one of the things I like most about a Woody Allen film is that I'm never quite sure what I'm going to get. It might be zany antics, it might be an in-depth character piece, it might be a crazy reimagining of a Asian spy movie, it might be a new favorite film of mine--it might be all of them rolled up in one. True, it might also be boring or bad--he doesn't have a perfect batting average, but who does?



Crimes and Misdemeanors would be a film that leans much more strongly to the serious drama side of Allen. In fact, I read that he felt like he had been too nice to his characters in Hannah and Her Sisters, so he made this film to fix that. It tells the story of two men whose paths only casually intersect. On the one hand, you have Judah (played by Martin Landau), an ophthalmologist who's gotten himself in a tight spot: he's been having an affair with an imbalanced woman who's now decided to expose the affair. Judah doesn't want that to happen, and he takes steps to avoid it. On the other hand, you have Clifford (played by Allen), a film maker who really wants to make a documentary on a philosophy professor, but ends up making one on his successful TV producer brother-in-law (whom he hates).



One of these men commits serious crimes throughout the movie. The other goes for the misdemeanors. It's an exploration of the results of these actions on the men and their lives--how they deal with them, how it affects their happiness, and how it affects the people around them. One of the things I liked most about the movie is that there is no guarantee that awful actions in life will make you miserable, and good actions will make you happy. Consequences--at least on earth--can seem like they have little relation to the cause, sometimes.



I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, although perhaps "enjoy" is a bad word to use. It left me thinking for the next few days. It's not a movie to watch to escape your problems--it's a film to watch to think about how you deal with them. A strong three and a half stars from me, and highly recommended. If you've seen it, please share your thoughts. I've tried to keep this review spoiler-free, but go ahead and post spoilers below if it helps the discussion.

Elizabeth Smart and the 110% Mentality

I've been following the trial of Brian David Mitchell fairly closely over the last few weeks. For those of you who don't know, he's the guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart from her room over eight years ago. She was a fourteen year old girl living a normal life with her family in Utah, and overnight she became the essential slave of this psycho and his wife. I was living in Utah at the time, and I don't know about the rest of the country, but her disappearance was huge news there. I remember after a few months thinking she was dead--she had to be. Cases like that never ended well. And then nine months later, she surfaced. She'd been walking around in the open for some time, following Mitchell and wearing a veil. It was the most bizarre turn of events I could have imagined.



Anyway, because I'd followed the case closely then, I really wanted to know how things turned out in the end. Mitchell's defense lawyers had been going for an innocent-by-insanity approach. They didn't deny that he did what Smart said he did--they argued that he thought it was the right thing to do. That he couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong. The Deseret News had been supplying line by line coverage of the trial, so you can read and find out exactly what Mitchell did, in Smart's own testimony. The man was a sick, depraved person who essentially used "revelation" to back up anything he wanted, whether it was drugs, sex or anything else. Smart was able to ultimately fight fire with fire, claiming revelations of her own and using Mitchell's own techniques to put herself in a situation where she could be rescued.



In the courtroom, Mitchell had been going on with his "religious martyr" routine, loudly singing church hymns each day until he inevitably had to be led out of the room so the trial could continue. I won't give you a full rundown of the ins and outs of the trial--you can read them all yourself if they interest you. Suffice it to say that Mitchell looks and acts every part the whacko.



And then I discover in the testimony that back in the 80s, Mitchell held some significant positions in the local Mormon church. (If you're not Mormon, this won't make sense to you, but if you are, he was on the high council, in a bishopric and a temple worker at one time or another.)



Whoa.



Hold on there a minute. Mr. Whacko had been giving advice to other Mormons on how to live their lives for a while? He'd been in positions of authority? How scary is that, and how does that happen? I read on in the testimony to see that at the time he'd been essentially a 110% Mormon. If there was a rule or a law or a suggested way of living, he'd not only follow it--he'd go beyond it. On the surface, at least. Underneath all of that 110% stuff was a man who was abusive to his family and had other serious issues. He was a good enough actor to make everything seem fine on the surface--but it was all there to hide what else was going on.



I believe life is all about balance. Balance work with family with personal interests with whatever. To be successful in life, you need to find that balance, and any time you start to focus on any one part, everything else goes out of whack. Put all your efforts into your business, and your family suffers. Put all your efforts into your family, and you might end up losing your job. Throw yourself into religion, and you're doing something wrong. Not all of the time, certainly, but that's the direction you're headed.



In the Book of Mormon, when Christ first appears in the Americas, he lays out his doctrine and then states, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them. And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them."

I think a lot of the time in Mormonism, at least, people see the "less" part of that statement and focus on it. We can't do less. Less is bad. And so in an effort to avoid doing less, they do more, forgetting that Christ said more was just as bad as less.

Balance.



You can't have it all. Not in this life, anyway. Whenever you see someone who apparently has it all, there's part of the story you're missing. A person who's wildly successful in his career has made sacrifices elsewhere. Fact. A person obsessed with sports is giving up time he could be using to do other things. We all have 24 hours each day. How we use those 24 hours is entirely up to us.



This isn't a blog post to rail on people who throw themselves wholeheartedly into religion or their job or anything else. If anything, it's an attempt on my part to work through in my head how someone like Mitchell could end up doing what he did. And maybe that's an exercise in futility to begin with. Maybe I'll never understand it, and maybe I don't want to. But somehow, at some point in his life, Mitchell had his stuff together enough to convince multiple people he should have an important role in a Mormon congregation. He gave advice to other people, and that advice carried the weight of authority. He didn't manage to pull this off for just a month or two--but for over a year, maybe more. Week after week of church meetings, and no one paused to question him? All the while he was being abusive and heading step by step toward Elizabeth Smart in his future.



I could go on, but I'm not going to. In the end, I think I'm just spinning my mental wheels and getting nowhere. Mitchell was found guilty. Smart has gone on to become a courageous young woman who's now going back to France to finish her time as a missionary for the Mormon church. At least it seems like part of this nightmare has a happy ending--but what can we do to try and avoid nightmares like this in the future?



I don't have an answer. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on anything I've discussed.